Saturday, October 2, 2010

Worst ConfCall ever? Sounds like the best ever to me

The UK's Daily Telegraph isn't my idea of a good read normally, but this one is precious. Yesterday (Friday) Citigroup (C) held a Conference Call featuring Ireland's Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, designed to calm fears over the current financial situation in Ireland. It didn't go according to plan, however. Here's an extract, go here for the whole thing:

Mr Lenihan had been speaking for less than two minutes on Friday before a mistake by Citigroup meant that the bank's clients were all able to be heard on the line. Between 200 and 500 investors are understood to have been on the call, and as they realised their lines were not muted many began to heckle Mr Lenihan. Some traders began making what one banker on the call described as "chimp sounds", while another cried out "dive, dive". A third man said "short Ireland" before adding "why not short Citi too?" As the call descended into chaos, with one participant heard to say "this is the worst conference call ever", Citigroup officials shut down the line.CONTINUES HERE

My stars, how many times have I sat through a bland as dishwater CC and wanted to do the same to the sophistry merchants on the other end of the line?

UPDATE: Darn, knew it was too good to be totally true. Fergus in the comments sectionleaves this link.(y'see what I mean about the Telegraph? ugh). Still doesn't change my view about what ConfCalls should allow me to do to BSing CEOs...